Dragon at Lunch

It was dull, damp and windy this morning. Having things to do in Woking, I treated the dogs to a walk in Hatchlands Park on the way home.

Given the conditions, I wasn't expecting to find much to photograph in the way of insects. When I noticed this Southern Hawker, Aeshna cyanea, with its female, hunting along the hedgerow, I hoped it would rest. The light conditions were too poor for an in flight shot. About a foot from me, it grabbed a fly on the wing and settled down to munch it's lunch beside me. The fly you can see to the right was lucky as the female Hawker was not far behind him and grabbed another, posing only a few feet away. This image is a little messy given the background but I still liked to see the Hawker with his fly dangling from his mouth.

The Southern Hawkers are one of the most common species of Dragonfly, although they become less frequent toward the north of England and are mostly absent from Scotland. They fly in surprisingly cool, cloudy conditions, often in the rain and will travel a substantial distance from water, making their territory along a hedgerow where they catch insects as they pass. Often, curious about humans, males on patrol will fly very close to investigate intruders.

After mating, the females lay their eggs, in rotting wood or moss at the margins of a pond, which hatch the following spring. The nymphs take two or three years to develop into adults. Living in the pond they voraciously eat insects, tadpoles and any other small invertebrate they can catch.